Posts by Steve Ringham

"don't like it"? - more like "can't find it"

Given the enormous range of recorded music available IF YOU LOOK FOR IT, I would suggest that a lot of that 44% don't know what music exists past the crap we endure on daytime radio, and the shite acts churned out through X Factor and Britain's got talent.

The problem is not one of tastes not catered for, it's one of visibility. It's why I've believe there's more justification for keeping the non-commercial programming of stations such as 6Music and getting rid of chart and major label centric commercial daytime Radio 1.

Only one out...again....

And as has also been pointed out before - in response - is that the "over-zealous police force" didn't give a hoot about S43. The only orphans they're bothered about are ones allegedly being sex-trafficked in the back of lorries.

Try S44 (Prevention of Terrorism Act 2000)- that's the one they and rent-a-job security guards use(d) to bother ordinary photographers.

BBC love-out

I'm really starting to believe that many Reg readers (at least the one who bother to comment) are also Daily Fail readers. It's the only way to explain the amount of flaming Auntie receives, every time her name is mentioned.

To the previous posters:

No - BBC staff don't get discounts on Apple kit

I'm sitting in a BBC office in White City as I type this. The only Apple kit I can see belongs to a couple of contractor developers sitting across from me. All the standard desktops and laptops are HP.

And why does the BBC need it's wings clipping Duncan? It's still responsible for some of the most entertaining and original programming in the UK.

The BBC are frequently accused (sometimes rightly) of wasting the licence fee. So what happens when they focus a product on those who will actually use it? You all start moaning about being left out (apart from Tony72 and Chad).

Well I'm pleased the article was written!

I installed the Enigmail add-on last month but had not done anything else; I was at the point of uninstalling it to stop the "send unencryptedmail?" messages. Laziness on my part, nothing else. I'm an IT "professional" who's aware of the problems of sending bare email and has some inclination to do something about it. So thanks to Dan for writing this article / tutorial.

And a big "STOP YOUR WHINGEING" to all the nay-saying biatches out there!

Sure, current means of encryption MIGHT be clunky and long-winded, but until your favourite email client does it easily, out of the box, then we all to get by as best we can. If you think this method sucks, then get off your fat arses and show us something better.

@ Tony Paulazzo - 3rd option

The sweep you mention was known here as Operation Ore. After the initial hand-wringing and back-slapping had died down, it transpired that a lot of the cases were not because the UK of full of paedos.

The stolen credit card details of such men as Pete Townsend (from The Who) and Robert Del Naja (3D from Massive Attack) were fraudulently used to pay for access to a range of porn sites of all varieties hosted by Landlside inc. When the UK police started to track these accesses, they followed the cards back to the owners. But they forgot to follow the payments, which predominantly ended up in the same place. Shoddy police work.

See http://www.xuk.biz/UKLR/Landslide/theshortstory.htm for a potted version of Operation Ore.

You should therefore add a 3rd scenario - that governments and the police have little understanding of the Internet and IT in general and are therefore most likely to bugger things up at every opportunity

BAA airports already have a compulsory ID system

I worked for BAA at Heathrow and their other sites for 7 years; they already have a highly regimented ID card system - all airport workers are required to have one. So where's the mileage in foisting another card onto these people?

If the Government think there's a problem with the integrity of BAA's system in relation to aiport security (if they believe the tabloid expose's), wouldn't they be better off legislating to force BAA to tighten their policies and implementation at BAA's expense?

Own worst enemy.....

Voshkin seems to skate very lightly over the numbers of Russians killed by....the Russians. Estimates of the deaths due to Stalin's purges and home economic policies vary from 4 million to 40+ million. However, recent general consensus centres around 10 - 20 million.

This includes 6 - 8 million in the Soviet-engineered Ukraine famine of 1932-33 (which happened to coincide with a purge of the Ukrainian Communist Party).

He also conveniently ignores the fact that the Soviet Union was the greatest collaborator of Germany from 1922 (breaking the Treaty of Versailles), up to the carve-up of Eastern Europe under the Molotov- von Ribbentrop treaty of 1939 - the point when the Baltic states started to get pissed off.

And his logic that the Baltic states should ignore their own post-war suffering at the hands of the Soviets in favour of the Soviets' own losses is moronic and unrealistic.

If the Baltic states want rid of reminders of their past on their sovereign ground, piss away - that is their right. They might have done it somewhat more diplomatically, but then again, the Eastern Europe approach to diplomacy can seem somewhat unsophisticated to Western minds.

Harriers in combat

@Ashley Pomeroy

If you'd read all of Sharkey's excellent book (well worth reading for anyone interested in a "bottom-up" view of the Falklans campaign as a counterpoint to Sandy Woodwards "top-down" tome) you'd know that he successfully piloted his Sea Harrier in mock combat against F-5s and even F-15s. The art of dogfighting is to make the opponent fly in the speed regime where your 'plane handles best - Sharkey understood his aircraft very well, hence his success against F-15s.

Due to it's design, Harriers (all models) fly very well very slowly - far slower than air superiority fighters. That and the ability for the pilot to shield it's Pegasus engine's heat signature - keep the nose up and let the broad wings hide the exhaust ports.

In the Falklands, the faster and (on paper) more capable Mirages learnt to keep well away from the Harrier patrols after their initial encounters. The Argentine successes with Exocets appear to be due to gaps in the patrols due to operational changes (it's all explained in the book).

@Maybe there are other causes for income decline

"Music at zero cost"? - hearing music is free, it's just sound at that moment in time. What you pay for, in one sense, is the privilege of being able to play it at a time and in a manner of your choosing. Having the CD / vinyl / MP3 gives you this privilege. (However, if you're still paying £15 for an album, you ARE a mug.)

I value my vinyl / CD collection because it allows me to hear without the inane drivel of some DJ and annoying adverts / jingles etc. I rip it to files so I can listen on my media player as well.

For every millionaire (Sir Cliff?) there could be a hundred breadline musicians. If there is a market for your product, isn't it fair that you get paid for it? Jealous? That your lack of talent means your work isn't in demand year after year?

Time Zones and Fox

@Steve Evans

Kathmandu is in Nepal. Nepal sets it's clocks different to India to illustrate

that it is not India - a national pride thing.

@Lindsay

I must be half asleep. I thought you meant the newsreaders were good looking - I'm so used to the variable level of grammar in the comments, that I saw a comma where there clearly wasn't meant to be one!

6 of one ...half dozen of the other

The promoter of an event is perfectly entitled to make up whatever T & C's they care for, as long as it doesn't break the law i.e. "You must take drugs in order to attend.." So if it states no resale or transfer, that's what it means.

Where promoters and ticket agencies do f**k us over is when they then state no refunds or returns. what are we supposed to do.

However, Ebay is a pox for concert goers, particularly if you live in a major city and especially in London.

In the old days, you knew you could go to a gig on the night and pick a ticket or two off the scalpers at an inflated price of course. But the touts' only outlet was at the venue on the night.

However now, due to Ebay, every one can be a tout without having to do the hard work.

Whoever is responsible for ticket sales then compound the issue by putting tickets on sale at stupid times - 9.00am on a Friday is typical. Genuine fans are all at work at that time and can't afford to sit at the computer for an hour trying to book tickets. But the touts can.

And Ebay doesn't even apply it's own rules, let alone anyone else's requests. It's own T & Cs state that transactions must be completed in 30 days - tickets are being offered immediately when they won't delivered for months.

Who's to blame?

18th Consecutive year!! - so it doesn't seem to matter whether the accounts are signed off or not then? It seems that the ICO is not the only toothless watchdog around these days!

"The report identifies limited IT integration as one reason for the high level of error, as well as complex benefits rules, poor business process design and human mistakes." -

Hmm..we all know about the inability of big government to implement IT so that part comes as no surprise, but complex benefits rules?.. I wonder who put them in place?...oh yes, the man now sitting in No.10.

Will someone at the NAO please a bill to G.Brown for £500 million please?

Bertie Smalls alert

I'd be most p**sed at the classmate who grassed about the avatar in the first place. Talk about either

1) a sense of humour failure or

2) what's it got to do with you?

While I feel sorry for anyone affected by the political atmosphere in the US right now, at least the rest of the world can look forward to the day when the USA implodes in a pile of stinking litigation and political oppression.

How many bites of the apple?

If Rick thinks that the act of shooting down an ICBM could trigger the warhead, then no wonder he wants to be shooting at the them over Europe!

Or maybe both Ricks realise how unreliable this system will be and they want as many pops at a target as they can squeeze in.

But why couldn't they have ship (or sub) launched interceptors and completely avoid the hot potato of European missile sites? Also, the failure of the Maginot line was that it immobile and the Gremans simply drove through Belgium and went around it - what will happen if the (perceived) threat moves from the Middle East?

Speeding not dangerous any more - Official

Swintons Insurance have announced this week that they will not increasing premiums for drivers with points for speeding. This is in recognition of the fact that so many drivers now have points that they effectively deem points as an occupational hazard of driving (my paraphrasing, not theirs!) and are no longer a valid indication that someone is a bad driver.

As far as I know (which might not be that much) no government research has ever differentiated between speed (or speeding) as the cause of an accident or just a factor. It would obviously serve their purpose to lump all together ( and I suspect that they do) in order to make the problem look worse than it is, in order to justify the creation and subsequent expansion of the camera programme. We all realise that cameras don't catch drunk/ tired/illegal or plain inept drivers, yet we all see the accidents and near misses on the road from these people.